Saturday, March 10, 2012

Junq Tour 2012: Neepawa

Here we are with the first installment of the Junq Tour for 2012! Every year I make the effort to pass through Neepawa, get some pie at Wilson's Place, and dig through both the thrift store and the book & tape shop. There are no cassettes, no videos, and no 8-tracks this round which I found a bit unusual. However, with my new found interest in 45s, I did manage to come out with some very odd Canadian treasures.

For the longest time, I never saw 45s as a viable source of oddball content. I generally hate the format. They take up too much room for such little music, and they've usually got the shit scratched out of them. Only lately have I seen that the format has some really odd and interesting stuff.

Anyway, onto the junk I found...

The Coming Of... Allie C.

One look at the cover and I had to grab this. It's a full moon, and this dude looks like he's gone psycho! He's about to cut off your head, roast it in the oven, and baste it in your blood. After he's done eating your cranium, he records this album of 80s pop love songs while the blood is still dripping from his chin.

I can certainly appreciate pop music done well, and this stuff is done very well. It's diverse, well written and well performed. It's just very anti-typical for 1999 and the cover just doesn't match what's on this disc. It sounds like a Richard Marx album, except this guy's voice isn't as cool. Regardless, he sings very well.

According to the inlay, he has previously done cheap imitation recordings of The Beatles. Many people out there collect cheap imitation Beatles recordings which likely explains why I've never found any. So a word of advice to those who want to make cheap imitation albums: If you cover the Beatles, you're going to make money.

There's a fine line between a questionable children's album and a clean adult comedy album. This is right on the line. I'm not sure I'd want my kid listening to this, but it's holding my attention as an adult. It almost sounds like an album that Ween would have done. The lyrics are stupid, and one of the singers sounds like he's fucked up on helium. While I was listening to this album, I was constanly bracing myself for the singer to spit out the word "cock" somewhere in one of the songs. Alas, these guys have no cocks. However, they somewhat redeem themselves by using the word "pussy" in the song "Bob the Cat"

My choice pick off this album was the song about a dog chewing on a kid's shitty underwear.

This is one of those unusual 45s. Winnipeg Barbershoppers? What the fuck is that? Do they cut hair while buying groceries? Anyway, the song on the other side of this 45 (Keystone) sucks balls, but Manitoba Moon is okay I guess, at least for barbershop music. Why was this 45 made? Who knows. What's so special about a Manitoba Moon? Well, that answer is quite simple. If you walk around in downtown Winnipeg or in the southern North End, you will find people out and about, scrounging for cigarette butts, empty beer cans, and pretty much anything else that can be used. The Moon in Manitoba (especially here in Winnipeg) shines a light to help those people find their little treasures. A selected few others use the Manitoba Moon to help them see the blood squirting out of the person they're currently murdering.

One side of this is a couple of guys singing lyrics about one of our dead prime ministers. The other side has one of the guys TALKING the same lyrics about the same dead prime minister. On top of it all, they set it to a really boring waltz. The singing side sounds like Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear singing in harmony, while that blue eagle muppet breaks in to tell us more about Pierre Trudeau. Yuck.

This must have been an educational record. With the exception of anything from Sesame Street, educational music is fucking awful. The last thing I wanted to do was learn about Pierre Trudeau through music, and not very good music at that. People in Regina have no talent.

When I first heard the official Mantitoba song on this old Opening Exercises tape, I was wondering where the hell it came from since I'd never heard it before. Doing a search for the lyrics on the net turned up nothing. However, this 45 has opened the door and explained things a little bit. It seems the song was written to celebrate Manitoba's 100th birthday. Not only that, it helps put an idea on how old that Opening Exercises tape really is.

I'm not going to post the side where the children sing it. I already covered that with the reel to reel tape, and this version isn't much different. However, I WILL be letting you hear the other side which is the "rock" version performed by some fly-by-night shit-on-your-head group named "The Fifth". It's cocksuckingly terrible, and it rocks about as hard as Lobo.

The Party Team - Your Party Music
This has to be the greatest album cover ever! Just look at it. You have everything you need for a great party: sticky bows, hats, records, an 8-track, pretzels, peanuts, and glasses of urine. Everything's you need is here... except for great party music. The album features some Ukranian band playing waltzes and polkas. Personally, I prefer hearing Judas Priest at my parties, and none of their songs are included on this record.

If you look closely at the songs on the 8-track on the album cover, you'll see that it's actually a copy of "Metro's Eleven Days from Christmas" with the cover blotted out. I previously posted about this album here.

Here are the two images for comparison:

Unfortunately, there's nothing interesting musically about this party album, so let's move onto the next one...

12 Tops - Today's Top Hits (the black and red one)

I accidently bought this one with the wrong fucking record in it, but the record inside is equally as amusing. It's an album by Pickwick with mostly cheap imitations of disco songs on it. I would've checked the album, but I didn't because sex sells, and this is a pretty sexy album cover. They could've slid a dinner plate in this sleeve and I would've still bought it. Besides, I only spent five bucks on all this stuff, so it's no huge loss.

Here's a nice recording of japanese women with heavy accents trying to pull off Abba. Well, at least I think they sound japanese.

Ahh, now THIS one has the right record in it! Don't be fooled by that "Stereo Gold Award" tag on it, that's the name of the record label and/or the band who's performing on it.

First of all, the cover. It's not that I mind the pants-less cowgirl on the cover, it's the fact that cowgirls generally don't listen to bands like The Who, Nazareth, Bob Dylan, or Electric Light Orchestra. Regardless, a pants-less cowgirl who listens to good music is stellar in my books!

Now for the bad part, I'm featuring a really bad imitation of Nazareth's "This Flight Tonight". It sounds more disco than rock and I'm really unsure about that guitar solo in the middle. It doesn't really sound like the one Nazareth did.

The M.F.P. 'HITS' group makes you Rock Rock Rock to these 12 great numbers

This is by far the GREATEST album title I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It's so great, I think I just wet myself just a little. By the way, did I mention that these three records are from England? Cheap imitations aren't just limited to us Canadians!

This last one is a bit unusual since it was manufactured by EMI, which is a fairly large record label. You'd think that they wouldn't HAVE to make cheap imitation records since they released big name artists, but this is living proof that EMI is just as guilty as the little garbage chutes such as "Fantastic F".

This record came out in 1968, and honestly it's probably one of the better sounding cheap imitation albums I've heard. There really isn't a standout terrible song on here, so I've randomly chosen the happity hippity boppity boopity "Judy In Disguise" which is kind of a stupid song anyway.

For a change of pace, we've got a book to post this time around. I don't get books very often because I don't have the time to read them. However, this one stood out. It could easily go by the alternative title "Mr. Rogers' Big Book of Kiddie Porn"

I'm really not sure why this book needed to be made. Most people I knew were creeped out by Mr. Rogers already, and he further justifies it by releasing this piece of trash. Stuff like this is the parents' responsibility to teach the child, not the responsibility of the creeps who went into making this book. Let's look at some of the pictures...

Step 1: Remove the child's clothing.

"Hi Jenny! Would you like to play a game?

"Sure!"

"Okay! Let's pretend I'm the doctor and you're the patient!"

"Oh, just like Uncle Jimmy does when mommy and daddy aren't around?"

"Yes! Exactly like that!"

"Now, I'm going to touch you in a SPECIAL way! Can you say SPECIAL?"

"Special!"

"Good! I knew you could!"

"It's okay Billy, don't cry! You'll learn to like it eventually."

There's lots more, but I'm already disgusted with myself for easily coming up with filthy captions for these pictures.

It's no doubt that you've unsubscribed from my blog after seeing scans from this book. Since that's the case, I'm off to see my lawyer so I can sue the corpse out of Mr. Rogers' tomb for making me lose readers. Please send donations to fund my legal fees!

Sheesh', now I am inspired to hunt for Canadian content by "Unknown" people and flip it off on your doorstep! Then one day as a token of appreciation, you will write a tribute to I, Anonymous, on this particular blog!

About Me

My blog "Classical Gas Emissions" is mostly about things that interest me. Much of it consists of things I find at Garage Sales, Thrift Stores, and in the trash. There are also some of my goofball antics in here that are solely for my amusement. I'm a bit of a techie; I love modifying electronic and computerized gadgets. I'm also a HUGE music junkie.